The present invention relates to frameless videos for delivering information to an end user.
New forms of online videos have recently emerged on the web: frameless videos in which characters appear free from a rectangular border whether inside a web page or on top of the web page, the latter form being known as overlay.
To date, frameless videos have been predominantly limited to a web page within a web browser application, and although these videos appear borderless, they are still part of a bigger frame—the web page window that is contained by the web browser application window. Existing frameless videos within a web page are often ads, such as a car that moves across the page or a pop-up. These can be frustrating to a computer user, since they obscure the page the user is trying to read. Another common form of web page based frameless videos are web page host(s) that attempt to guide and enhance an end users experience within a given web page. Frameless video outside of a webpage and web browser applications also exist. For example, virtuagirl.com provides downloadable video files of models for display on the operating system desktop, outside of a browser or other application.
An example of an interactive advertising system where a user can select the types of ads is set forth in US Published Application No. 20090063283, “System and Method for Consumer-Selected Advertising and Branding in Interactive Media.” US Published Application No. 20090144105 shows advertising associated with an avatar in a virtual world. US Published Application No. 20080120558 describes an avatar that can migrate from one virtual environment to another.
Stanford professors Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass, in their compelling study, “The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media like Real People and Places”, have highlighted that people automatically and subconsciously anthropomorphize their computer experience. Modern computers attempt to express complex actions and produce objects that are from the real world. The human brain wants to treat the computer as if it were a type of life form.